Talk:David Hand (animator)

David Hand in England

My father, Leslie Watson, went to see Hand in London with a view to working for him. He was asked to produce a series of drawings for animation of a little boy stealing a pie from a windowsill. I believe these were intended to be included in the Musical Paintbox series of cartoons. Hand wanted my father to join his team but was only prepared to pay my father three guineas a week and my father turned down the offer. He was a commercial artist working in an advertising studio in the West End at the time (about 1948/9) and was earning a good wage. 92.29.251.170 (talk) 09:51, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

There's a very long blog online that was made by one of the people who knew everything about the life of the animation studio before and after. I did post all of this to Wikipedia earlier, but I need to find more sources alongside more information as I can gather.

• Hand's son, David Hale Hand, explained that the team of Disney and Hand had formed a dynamic duo. He explained in an interview that serious situations were not as they had been at Disney when the Studio became unionized and David Hand became "disenchanted" during 1944. He knew that "he only answered to Walt in his position as Production Supervisor of the Studio. One of his associates once told me that 'Walt was the creative genius of the Studio and Hand was the pragmatic creative genius. Both Hand and Walt his notice as he felt that there was a great opportunity in Great Britain. Rank liked the idea of creating an animation studio much in the likeness of Disney Studios. David flew to London the following year where Rank put him up at the Savoy Hotel for six months to make up a business plan with as well as possibly selling the idea to his Board of Directors. That business plan worked, and both Hand and Rank launched his studio in 1946 and over the weeks and months that followed close to 250 talented writers, artists, animators, painters, editors, camera technicians were assembled at Cookham. 147 of them are both artists and technicians.
• Hand and his animation crew first animated advertisements shortly after launching their studio. A few of those early works contain two-minute animated advertisements for Rowntree's Cocoa, and was a series featuring a negro boy named Coco and a black bear. Two of Coco's animated shorts exist online, Coco And The Bear and Coco The Trapper, both from 1946, and featured narration by Elizabeth Welch in both shorts. Its stories were primarily just their own collaborations of early Bugs Bunny versus Elmer Fudd. It was completely unknown if a third or more were made.
• Later on, Hand, alongside production manager Bob Skimmer, would then establish the two technicolor cartoon series Animaland and Musical Paintbox, which was announced sometime either in or around 1947. Although they officially took their ideas, more people join in the studio and it took months to make the shorts before officially releasing the first of both shorts in late-September 1948 with both of its series had separate divisions across the hall. Sylvia Woodhouse was the secretary to David, succeeded by Joan Patton. Freda Salberg of Johannesburg, South Africa was the longtime manager at Moor Hall throughout the animation studio's history. She went on to continue working at Moor Hall following the closure of the animation studio and the hall's later site as a college for the British Tabulating Machine Company until her retirement in January 1958 after 15 years.
• The Animaland team went under the direction of Bert Felstead, with stories written by Reg Parlett, Roy Davis, Pete Griffiths, and Nobby Clark under the supervision of another legend Disney animator Ralph Wright, setups designed by Pete Banks, Jeff Martin, and Perc Poynter, and backgrounds by George Hawtorn, Betty Hansford, Kay Pearce and Eric Rickus. The animators for the series were Stan Pearsall, Bill Hopper, George Jackson, Frank Moysey, John Wilson, Ted Percival, Eddie Radage, Tom Halley, Jack Stokes and Arthur Humberstone. John Milton Gurr manipulated and synchronized the visual film with the various voice acting and sound effects. Henry Reed, formerly from Warwick, composed the music. Reed had been in the musical business since 1925 when he orchestrated and composed various theatrical productions as well as at one time a piano player before joining the BBC in 1939 as a producer with the variety department. In all, he composed more than 400 songs between 1925 and 1948. Ron Murdoch and Sid Vicary served as both main cleanup and in-between artists for the series; Sid's mother Val Vicary was one of the designers for the series. Vicary also teamed up with Eddie Radage for Esso's Ye Olde English Car-Tunes (alongside assistant animator Jim Malcolm with storyboard supervision by Hitch Hitching; explained below). Chick Henderson (or A.W. Henderson) had an animating stint at Animaland before writing a tense half-hour play for radio that was broadcast by the BBC, with Hand and the entirety of his animation team tuned in that night for the broadcast. Stuart Crombie joined Cookham after working on the sound for the Laurence Olivier film Henry V, and would later provide band music for the BBC Television test cards in the post-war period. The first Animaland short, The Cuckoo, took several months to develop due to its staff clearly running out of ideas.
• The Musical Paintbox team went under the direction of Henry Stringer, with employees John Woodward, John Worseley, Pat Griffin (who later created his own animation film unit in Maidenhead), Pete Griffiths, Nicholas (Nick) Spargo, Alan Gray, Brian Wared, Deryck Foster, Peter Jay, Brian O'Hanlon, Waclaw (Wacky) Machan, Andre Amstutz, and Ralph Wright. Bettina Hansford was one of the background artists, and British comedian Michael Bentine also had a short writing stint with the Musical Paintbox series.
• The late comedian, Bob Monkhouse, who reportedly accused both Gaumont and Moor Hall of being "all Disney," was employed at Cookham as a "gag writer" and the voice actor for several Animaland films, but veterans say that he only stayed for a short while. Chick Henderson replied in an interview that Monkhouse did say that "they did think the early productions were modelled on Disney at first, but Hand had been one of the key directors at Disney, adding that it was a tried and true technique and they always hoped to develop it British-styled."
• Some other known people who've worked with Hand's animation team include Josephine Lancaster of High Wycombe and Beryl Stevens of Gosford, although I cannot find any information about their roles. Disney animator John Franklin Reed was also part of Hand's team during his stint.
• The four Esso advertisements are two-minutes long featuring two animated characters, a kitty with gold fur and a blue skirt and a dog with brown fur and a yellow shirt who falls for his red car and not his kitten. The dog appeared on all four shorts while the kitten appeared in three. All of which were released between late-1948 and early-1949. I cannot find as much detail about the staff from the advertising division but all four shorts went under the storyboard direction of Hitch Hitching, with Sid Vicary doing the clean-up work. Jim Malcolm and Eddie Radage were some of the animators, but I cannot find any information about the others. Otherwise, all four shorts featured songs sung by male musical groups. One of those groups are The Radio Revellers, who made their musical appearance in The Ostrich. The group sung the entirety of Early One Morning, and only on the titles in At The Seaside (the only short without the kitten character). The rest of the two shorts have two different musical groups having a short each, one did There Is A Tavern In The Town and the other did A Lover And His Lass. I cannot find the other two acapella groups who've sung in the two shorts. The group in Tavern sounds like four men with early ancient German accents (primarily because the setting was set in an old German town in the actual short), while the group in Lass sounds like a very powerful trio who nailed their chords really good. As for the Revellers, they were credited on Early One Morning only. A Lover And His Lass is also the only short that has the dog spending more of his time with the kitten character, which is more than the other two shorts she appeared in, although he was in his car throughout the entire short. The dog character was also fooled twice in Early One Morning when he was unexpectedly kissed twice by his kitty and not his car (one of which he wasn't moving at all because he was trapped in the snow that fell on top of the Esso pump). Lass and Seaside have extra characters making their own appearances, and Lass and Morning are the only shorts to have a face on the car. To the best of my knowledge, I'm very sure Tavern and Lass were the first two shorts in order, followed by Morning and Seaside afterward. This was due to the fact that both the dog and kitten characters were slightly different with both shading and design in Morning, and the Ye-Olde title card had a slight change in Seaside, with the Ye-Olde name being changed to Olde Favourite.
• Here's a little behind-the-scenes moment. During the making of The Australian Platypus, Arthur Humberstone received trouble after looking into its storage unit where staff members kept mountainous supplies of cels and cartridge paper, saying that he needed a cell and requested someone to paint it with several coatings of film cement until it distorts and do an overlay that would give the underwater impression, a simple distortion without looking obvious. That same effect would later be used in It's a Lovely Day (released on August 11, 1949). Speaking of It's A Lovely Day, the short itself became the first David Hand cartoon to be screened in a film festival, via the October 1949 French International Film Festival in Cannes, France. Despite all the rush in the studio, Bee Bother was Ginger's second film released on November 16, 1949, followed by Christmas Circus on December 22, 1949. Ginger's last short Forest Dragon came out the following year in April 1950.
• There are some notable moments from outside the animation industry. Exactly days before the release of It's A Lovely Day, some of their animation team participated in a little cricket match in Taplow against the city's team. One highlight was notable. One of its animator players dived to catch the ball before the opposing player slid to first base when all of the sudden, the animator player was covered in a cloud of smoke because he has a box of matches inside his pocket. Many players from both teams alongside their umpires rushed to him for aid, but continued to play after treatment from a burn on one of his legs.
• During his last year as a British animator, he toured around several theaters operated by the Odeon Cinemas chain as part of the Odeon Children's Cinema Club which was held every Saturday morning at the time. One of which was the January 21, 1950 stop at the Odeon in Kensington where he was greeted by the theater's manager J.C. Evans alongside the editor of the Kensington News. Hand spoke to the children on their upcoming shorts followed by a special screening of The House Cat (their second production after The Cuckoo). After the cartoon and the prizewinners, Hand went to the manager's office for lunch which they have sandwiches, chocolate biscuits, and coffee.
• Shortly after his Gaumont studio closed in 1950, the Cookham films were honored the following year in the 1951 Festival of Britain, in which Hand attended, and was presented to Queen Elizabeth (later The Queen Mother) at the same time.

There are several photos of his production crew, including one with Hand demonstrating the storyboard to Ginger Nutt's It's A Lovely Day and another from a Musical Paintbox short. Otherwise, that's all the information I can find for now. I hope I can find more information. 108.207.107.176 (talk) 02:55, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

• 108.207.107.176 (talk · contribs · IP contribs · WHOIS), please insert content based on reliable secondary independent sources please. Drmies (talk) 02:56, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

  I cannot find as much detail on secondary independent sources, except random local events related to the series as well as the same information as what Wikipedia had now. But if I find details about the staff, production, and the behind-the-scenes, I'll let you know. Otherwise, I'm so sorry for what I did. 108.207.107.176 (talk) 03:02, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

  No need to feel sorry, I'm not blaming you--but we need such content to have solid sourcing. Thank you, Drmies (talk) 03:08, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

  Here's a 2009 story about his son living in Broomfield, Colorado, will this work?

  • https://www.broomfieldenterprise.com/2009/11/28/broomfield-man-reviving-dads-disney-days/

  108.207.107.176 (talk) 03:09, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

References

Fantasia

What is the source for David Hand's involvement w/ Fantasia? He isn't even credited during the 1990 reissue. Evope (talk) 05:33, 25 July 2023 (UTC)